Religion in the way of science?

[ArmchairGeneral]

Evolution is a biological process, though as you point out, some of the evidence for its existence comes from geology and geography, but overwhelmingly the evidence is biological.

Hmm. I would argue that the strongest evidences are geological and geographical. There are plenty of biological evidences, but there are other ways to interpret a lot of the data, and there are lots of confusing areas, especially with cladistics. OTOH, I have yet to hear anyone explain the biogeography of Australia convincingly without invoking some major evolutionary events. Nor have I seen a really good non-evolutionary explanation of the order of the fossil record.

Long time no see, btw. Good to see you around.

[Parihaka]

So, if I hear you correctly, you would argue that science and religion are mutually exclussive? Perception is one's reality? Therefore, both religion and scence require faith since both are viewed through one's perception of reality.

Therefore, neither can be considered true, but the basis or seperate building blocks of each can be evaluated by an individual as either valid or invalid.

Yes. Nicely put.

[bandwagon]

Hmm. I would argue that the strongest evidences are geological and geographical. There are plenty of biological evidences, but there are other ways to interpret a lot of the data, and there are lots of confusing areas, especially with cladistics. OTOH, I have yet to hear anyone explain the biogeography of Australia convincingly without invoking some major evolutionary events. Nor have I seen a really good non-evolutionary explanation of the order of the fossil record.

Long time no see, btw. Good to see you around.

Thanks AG. It's too easy to spend too much time on WAB.

Biological evidence from genome mapping and from anatomical and physiological homology is pretty compelling. For example the human genome can be seen to have changed over the past 100,000 yrs, under selective pressures from enviromental and dietary change. E.g. the emergence of a variant gene that allowed the continued production of lactase after weaning allowed consumption of milk from domesticated animals. Under the selective pressure of needing to survive winters it was this genome that emerged and populated the colder North European and colder Asian regions. Note that in regions where there is no long established tradition of dairy farming lactose intolerance is the norm amongst pure bred natives.

Another biological example is the emergence of specific antibiotic resistance amongst bacteria. And what about them River Guppies.

[Ryan Bailey]

Can I use cats?

Cats and other widely bred animals; horses, dogs etc. are great examples of why evolution is not science.

Showing variations within a kind is not evidence of Macro-evolution. In micro-evolution, which I believe in, as do most creationists even, variations within a kind are passed on but no new kind is made.

I come back to your guppy example. All guppies & cats & horses & dogs birth 100% guppies & cats & horses & dogs 100 % of the time, without deviation. In order to prove the Speciation that Darwin hypothesizes in his book, which is so racist that the title cannot be mentioned here, one of these would have to birth a different animal, how else could we all share a common ancestor.

And by the way Darwinian Evolution does teach that everything came from nothing, I assure you you'll want to re-research that. Its right in the textbooks.

Most of you went to a school where the textbooks had a "horse tree" attempting to prove evolution. This is now entirely disproved by the way, as is every single piece of fossil eveidence, embryology, the geologic column and all the rest. We are living in an age when darwinism will come to be regarded as a type of flat earth ignorrance of basic facts.

Show a five year old three pictures; a wolf, a coyote & an apple and ask him which of the two are related, he'll get it correct every time. Show an evolutionary scientist the same three pictures and he'll get it wrong, since he believes people are related to fruit.

[Ryan Bailey]

...On the surface it is impossible to believe that, for example, the incredibly complex physiological systems in mammals could have arisen through ramdom mutations and natural selection. ..

Agreed

One would really have to study it in more depth, including at genetic and embryological levels, and to realise that it is a progression caused by innumerable tiny steps over an enormous time span, and to understand the pressures for survival in new or changing niches, in order to see the whole thing.

I'm so glad you bring this up. As I've stated above embryology was essentially the theory of darwinian recapitulation in utero. This was disproved by sonogramy. It was pretty much one of the greatest frauds of all time, like all of darwinism.

The charlatan who came up with the drawings, allegedly showing gills and the such on embryo's, was tried & convicted in academic court. His drawings still appear in the textbooks over a century later.

Genetics & genomics disproves Darwinian evolution since through these disciplines we understand that no new data can be chemically added to DNA. In other words in the spirit of entropy & Newtonian physics things can only devolve unless acted upon by an outside force. Darwinian evolution is the exact opposite.

In Darwin's day evolutionists assumed these changes could not be observed in the fossil record because they happened so slowly. Now geologists & biologists still ignorrant enough to believe Darwinism assume that it cannot be observed in fossils because it happens so quickly, i.e. punctuated equilibrium which is a cover-up that has tipped most right thinking people off to the fraud.

This over-eagerness to "cover-up" realities is perspicuous to religious hierarchies.

“Speciation” is an arbitrary concept, deemed to be the point at which evolutionary diversification has progressed too far to allow reliable interbreeding. In fact the development of a single heritable adaptive trait is evolution.

Evolution is a biological process, though as you point out, some of the evidence for its existence comes from geology and geography, but overwhelmingly the evidence is biological.

The theory of evolution is wide open to falsification, but as yet no falsifying evidence has been found.

On the contrary my assertion is that no evidence has been found

Below you do an excellent job of illustrating for us what irreducible complexity means, thanks I'm generally unfamiliar with that whole line of reasoning likely because it's irrelavent. Would you please be so kind as to choose a single well articulated piece of evolutionary evidence so I may have a chance to "falsify" it in your terms. This would be almost like a (gulp) debate.

Until someone raises a single articulated piece of evolutionary evidence this discussion can make no progress toward either side.

I am totally unaware as to any evidence of darwinian evolution.

The best attempt by creationists is the notion of “irreducible complexity”, which is the suggestion that a complex organ is of no use until it has reached its finished state, and therefore could not have evolved in stages, and therefore could only have been "created". In fact in most instances of alleged irreducible complexity it can be shown that either adaptive function existed in earlier forms, or functional diversification occurred (exaptation).

Thanks in advance, for the information.

[Ryan Bailey]

[QUOTE=ArmchairGeneral;567280]There are plenty of biological evidences...
QUOTE]

Friend, you seem to be perpetrating a trend of non-commital commentary here.

I am respectfully requesting that one of your "plenty" of evidences be submitted here for closer discussion.

Prejudicially passing judgment is not what educated debate is about.

I perceive from your intelligent demeanor that you are likely capable of citing evidentiary subject matter.

This would be most productive.

Thank you in advance.
:)

[Ryan Bailey]

Thanks AG. It's too easy to spend too much time on WAB.

Biological evidence from genome mapping and from anatomical and physiological homology is pretty compelling. For example the human genome can be seen to have changed over the past 100,000 yrs, under selective pressures from enviromental and dietary change. E.g. the emergence of a variant gene that allowed the continued production of lactase after weaning allowed consumption of milk from domesticated animals. Under the selective pressure of needing to survive winters it was this genome that emerged and populated the colder North European and colder Asian regions. Note that in regions where there is no long established tradition of dairy farming lactose intolerance is the norm amongst pure bred natives.

Another biological example is the emergence of specific antibiotic resistance amongst bacteria. And what about them River Guppies.

Roger, sir.

I agree that adaptation exists, truth is I accomplish the same thing every day in shaving.

Again, you do not honestly expect me to accept that guppies having guppies proves that we arfe all descended from a rock, do you?

Can you even show any of Darwin's Transitional forms?

Without them evolution is dead in the water.

You do yourself a great dis-service to mention genomics in evidence, if that's what your above is. As I've already said our understanding of the genome proves that Darwinism could never happen because of genetic entropy.

I hope you can do better than that, over a century of evolutionary credibility hangs in the balance for our readers.

[bandwagon]

I'm so glad you bring this up. As I've stated above embryology was essentially the theory of darwinian recapitulation in utero. This was disproved by sonogramy. It was pretty much one of the greatest frauds of all time, like all of darwinism.

The charlatan who came up with the drawings, allegedly showing gills and the such on embryo's, was tried & convicted in academic court. His drawings still appear in the textbooks over a century later.

No. You’re now talking about Haeckel and his fake pictures of embryos, with which he claimed to show that the development of the embryo recapitulates evolution. This is daft. (For a start no embryo goes through much of an adult stage of its ancestors). It’s much more like the other way round: new variant characteristics first show in the embryo. Evolution is not linear (a whole lungfish embryo does not gradually develop into a human embryo; different characteristics diverge at different stages). So in truth, the evolution of each characteristic in an adult form recapitulates the path that characteristic takes in the development of the embryo.

Genetics & genomics disproves Darwinian evolution since through these disciplines we understand that no new data can be chemically added to DNA. In other words in the spirit of entropy & Newtonian physics things can only devolve unless acted upon by an outside force. Darwinian evolution is the exact opposite.

That discounts the power of natural selection, which would not allow degradation (which is maladaptive by definition), quite the opposite in fact. BTW the spirit of entropy and Newtonian physics only applies to closed systems

Until someone raises a single articulated piece of evolutionary evidence this discussion can make no progress toward either side.

How about homology across species. This is striking in physiological systems and in anatomy. Take a human arm, for instance. It is possible to see the same bone structures all the way to the forefin of the primordial lung fish, only the relative sizes change. The single upper bone (humerus) is in the fin, as well as the dual radius and ulna. The carpal bones of the wrist, the five metacarpals of the hand and five digits are present in all amphibians, reptiles, birds and mammals. Size and function vary progressively. Even the wing of a bird has the same bones as the human arm, wrist and hand. It is possible to see the evolutionary progression of the relative sizes shape and function. It is certainly evidence of common ancestry. What is even stronger evidence is that all anatomical features show a similar homology in parallel. What is more there are no anatomical features in related or ancestral organisms that do not show homology.

BTW there is no such thing as a “Darwinian transitional stage”. Each stage of an organism, or of an adaptive characteristic, is a bona fide “fully” evolved form. It can only get better, (or regress if no longer adaptive due to environmental change due to genetic drift).

[bandwagon]

Cats and other widely bred animals; horses, dogs etc. are great examples of why evolution is not science.

Showing variations within a kind is not evidence of Macro-evolution. In micro-evolution, which I believe in, as do most creationists even, variations within a kind are passed on but no new kind is made.

No. For one thing, husbandry has only existed for less than 20,000yrs. But more importantly breeding is not open-ended. It stops when a result has been achieved. (If you only believe in microevolution, you’d have to have a limit to the amount that can be allowed to take place if you want to avoid speciation).

I come back to your guppy example. All guppies & cats & horses & dogs birth 100% guppies & cats & horses & dogs 100 % of the time, without deviation. In order to prove the Speciation that Darwin hypothesizes in his book, which is so racist that the title cannot be mentioned here, one of these would have to birth a different animal, how else could we all share a common ancestor.

Darwin racist? You mean in “The Descent of Man”. How do you infer that?

No organism has ever given birth to a different species (and this comment makes me suspect you do not fully understand evolution). On this specifically, why not read Dawkins’ “The Blind Watchmaker”.

[Ryan Bailey]

No. You’re now talking about Haeckel and his fake pictures of embryos, with which he claimed to show that the development of the embryo recapitulates evolution. This is daft. ...

...That discounts the power of natural selection, which would not allow degradation (which is maladaptive by definition), quite the opposite in fact. BTW the spirit of entropy and Newtonian physics only applies to closed systems......

...BTW there is no such thing as a “Darwinian transitional stage”... .

Friend, in these quotes I could not find more agreement with you.

You have most importantly exposed the essential fact that the "transitional fossils" which Darwinism requires are nowhere to be found, despite the best efforts of a corrupt field of what Ben Stein calls "big science", much more communistic and stifling than big tobacco or big oil. All this whilst the interests trying to prove darwinian evolution have had the benefit of universal brainwashing of our youth, support from an academic aristocracy which disallows intelligent discussion & a blank check from the governments of the west.

"With savages, the weak in body or mind are soon eliminated; and those that survive commonly exhibit a vigorous state of health. We civilized men, on the other hand, do our utmost to check the process of elimination; we build asylums for the imbecile, the maimed, and the sick; we institute poor-laws; and our medical men exert their utmost skill to save the life of every one to the last moment. There is reason to believe that vaccination has preserved thousands, who from a weak constitution would formerly have succumbed to smallpox. Thus the weak members of civilized societies propagate their kind. No one who has attended to the breeding of domestic animals will doubt that this must be highly injurious to the race of man. It is surprising how soon a want of care, or care wrongly directed, leads to the degeneration of a domestic race; but excepting in the case of man himself, hardly any one is so ignorant as to allow his worst animals to breed."
Charles Darwin

[Ryan Bailey]

On Darwin the Racist

.

Darwin racist? You mean in “The Descent of Man”. How do you infer that?

Me Imply that the ineffable Darwin was a racist, why no, no, not...Yes. Refer to my above quote.

No organism has ever given birth to a different species (and this comment makes me suspect you do not fully understand evolution). On this specifically, why not read Dawkins’ “The Blind Watchmaker”.

Roger that I do not believe that any living thing can give birth to any living thing of a different kind. I will be pleased to be educated by you if you care to show an example otherwise. I've read everything ever written by Dawkins, Jay Gould & Doolittle, I was the only evolutionist in my graduating class that I know of, at a private Christian school that taught creationist indoctrination. I know that Dawkins cites no examples of speciation. That's because its never happened. Although River out of Eden is his best discussion of origins.

.

[greycloud]

Dear All,
This has been a most excellent discussion but I am afraid that we have wandered off topic. In my study of the history of science and of the study of religion I would like to look at Galileo. Both Darwin and Galileo were extremely religious men. Both had very simple ideas that only served to emphasize the wonder of it all. Both had ideas that simplified but allowed complexity. Religion insisted at that time that the earth sat at the center of the universe, now we know that life is endemic, probably anywhere that's over a billion years old. Darwin may have contributed the simple idea that things arrange themselves, one of the greatest ideas ever thought but that and two bucks will buy a cup of coffee now.
These guys and Albert Einstein were all religious men and I am too.

[Officer of Engineers]

Of all the most blasephemous things i've ever heard of! This cannot be accepted. It violates all laws of men and science as well as of faith!

Two dollars for a cup of coffee?!?!?

[Shamus]

Of all the most blasephemous things i've ever heard of! This cannot be accepted. It violates all laws of men and science as well as of faith!

Two dollars for a cup of coffee?!?!?

Outrageous!!Tim Horton's large is just $1.55 US including tax

[greycloud]

Okay,
I admit, 1.75 canadian.
Grey